its own; a recognition of the great educational value of the laboratory method in library administration; and the widening of its field of work which a library gains by the added attractions of free access to its shelves—these considerations, save in certain peculiar cases, seem to decide the question of the proper policy of the public library toward its public. That more communities do not now demand the adoption of the system of open shelves in their public libraries is due largely to the conservatism of library boards, and to an unreasoning submission to authority on the part of the reading public. Even the enlightened are slow to ask for a right before they have exercised it and experienced its advantages.
These statements of proper library methods will seem to the reader who is not familiar with public library methods as they are, simple, commonplace, and self-evident. He may well wonder why one takes the trouble to repeat them in print. By way of justification it should be said that the manner of conducting a public library now in almost universal use in this country is this: Between the books and the would-be users of them is placed an insurmountable barrier. At this barrier stand librarian and attendants. The reader or student flounders about in a list of the library's books until he arrives at a guess—it is often not more than a guess—at the titles of the books he wishes. A list of these books he hands over the barrier to the attendant, and of them the attendant brings him the first one that happens to be in. Perhaps he wishes to make a study of some subject. Generally, in such a case, he must make out a list from a brief catalogue of the books which he thinks may help him, and of the titles of articles which he surmises will be useful in files of periodicals or proceedings. This list, handed to the attendant, brings him some of the things called for. Half of them are probably not what he expected, and he must try again. Always between him and the sources of information the personality of librarian or attendant obtrudes itself. His wants must trickle over a library counter, and then must filter through the mind of a custodian who is perhaps not very intelligent and is probably not very sympathetic, before they can be satisfied by contact with the books themselves. In a good many libraries a few reference books are placed where any one can reach them. But this is in most cases the limit of the concession, made to the demand for immediate contact with the library's resources. The new library in Boston has stored the most of its popular books, the books which the majority of its patrons most call for, in a dark warehouse, lighted only by artificial light, and reached, as far as the borrower is concerned, only by mechanical contrivances which compel a wait of nearly ten minutes for every book called for. The borrower can not see the books; he can not
